Telephone Troubles Part Two

Well, they turned my telephone back on today, but not before they really pissed me off and made my blood pressure skyrocket. I could feel my blood boiling while I was on the phone with them today. Now, I could understand the reaction if I was on the line screaming and cussing at them, but I was nice, at least to start off with. I really don’t know how these so called customer service people can keep their jobs.

Here is what I wrote to the Arizona President of Qwest today. If my letter gets to him at all, he probably won’t care or do anything at all. But you know I had to write it.

“I am currently working at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with the National Park Service. I arrived here in April and ordered basic telephone service and DSL from Qwest. My service was installed when I was told it would be.

However, when I received my first bill, there was a charge of $300 for “materials”. I was not told when I ordered the service that there would be a charge like that, so I called customer service to find out what it was for. On June 9, 2008, I talked to Austin in billing. I was on hold for almost two hours while he checked with every department he could think of to find out why there was such a charge on my bill. Austin finally told me that since no one could verify the charge, he would credit my account for the $300 plus taxes, and that I should pay the balance of my bill, which I did.

Yesterday, July 10, 2008, when I came home from work my telephone service was disconnected. I went to a neighbor’s house, and called the billing department again. This time I spoke to Anita. Anita told me there was no notation of a credit to my account from June. She kept me on hold for well over an hour, making the same calls to all the different departments that Austin made back in June. She finally told me that she was not able to verify that there should be a charge of $300 on my bill, but she could not reconnect my service. She said she would refer my account to a “complex billing department” for them to investigate further. I gave her my boss’s office telephone number and asked her to have someone call me after 3:00 p.m. the next day.

No one called me from Qwest, so I called the billing number again on July 11, 2008 around 3:35 p.m. I reached a young man who gave his name as Aaron. Aaron asked me what I was calling about, and when I started to explain what had happened, he said “I don’t have time to listen to your long story, lady. Are you calling to take care of your bill so we can restore your service or what?” I then asked to speak to his supervisor, he said “I’ll be glad to connect you to the someone else who can listen to your story”. Then I was put back into the loop and after holding for ten minutes, I was connected to another service representative named Maria. I asked Maria if she was a supervisor and she said she was not. She told me that she did not see what the problem was because there was already an order to restore my service and she could see a credit on my account.

I am writing to you to today to let you know that Qwest was given many opportunities to provide good customer service to me and failed on each one. I do think this is the worst customer service I have ever received from any company, especially from Aaron. I have spent more than four hours of my time trying to get this situation straightened out, and as of 4:36 p.m on July 11, 2008, I still do not have telephone service.

I worked for BellSouth in Atlanta for 20 years, most of that time as a service representative, so I know a little bit about what good customer service should sound like. I know for certain that if there was an alternative to using Qwest, I would be the first in line to switch my service.”

Thank you all for letting me vent. I really do feel better now.